Diastasis recti abdominis (DRA) refers to the separation of the 2 recti abdominis muscles, and is quantified by the inter-recti distance (IRD). DRA can occur in women at the later stages of pregnancy 4,11 and remain immediately 4,8,16 and early postpartum. 4,6,9,11,16 Published case reports indicate a partial resolution of the DRA at 4 weeks, 11 8 weeks, 11 or 12 weeks postpartum. 16 Coldron et al 9 also reported that most of the recovery of IRD occurred by 8 weeks. 9 No further improvement was noted at the end of the first year, 9 suggesting that partial recovery of DRA happens after childbirth but is incomplete even after 1 year.The linea alba, separating the 2 recti abdominis, is a fibrous raphe extending from the xiphoid process to the pubic symphysis, and is formed by the interlacing aponeurotic fibers of the oblique and transverse muscles. 2,30 DRA, in pregnant women, might result from progressive stretching of the abdominal wall with T T STUDY DESIGN: A prospective longitudinal study. T T BACKGROUND: Diastasis recti abdominis(DRA) is defined as an increase in the inter-recti distance (IRD), or width of the linea alba. It is a common occurrence in women postpartum. Little information exists on the short-and long-term recovery of IRD and the relationship between changes in IRD and the functional performance of the abdominal muscles. T T OBJECTIVES:To investigate the natural recovery of IRD and abdominal muscle strength and endurance in women between 7 weeks and 6 months postpartum, and to examine the relationship between IRD and abdominal muscle function. T T METHODS:Forty postpartum (25-37 years of age) and 20 age-matched, nulliparous females participated. IRD was measured at 4 locations (upper and lower margin of the umbilical ring, and 2.5 cm above and below the umbilical ring) with a 7.5-MHz linear ultrasound transducer. Trunk flexion and rotation strength and endurance were measured with manual muscle testing and curl-ups. Evaluation was conducted at 4 to 8 weeks and 6 to 8 months after childbirth in postpartum women, and only once for the nulliparous female controls. T T RESULTS:During follow-up, the IRD at 2.5 cm above the umbilical ring and at the upper margin of the umbilical ring decreased (P = .013 and P = .002, respectively). The strength and static endurance of the abdominal muscles improved over time (P<.05). A negative correlation between IRD and abdominal muscle function at 7 weeks and 6 months postpartum was found (r = 0.34 to 0.51; P<.05, except for trunk flexion strength at 6 months postpartum [P = .064]). In addition, IRD changes between 7 weeks and 6 months postpartum were correlated with improvement in trunk flexion strength (Spearman rho = 0.38, P = .040). At 6 months after childbirth, postpartum women had greater mean  SD IRDs at all 4 locations (from cranial to caudal: 1.80  0.72, 2.13  0.65, 1.81  0.62, and 1.16  0.58 cm) than those of nulliparous females (0.85  0.26, 0.99  0.31, 0.65  0.23, and 0.43  0.17 cm) (all P<.001). All abdominal strength and endurance measurements...

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In recent years many multimedia services, such as voice over IP and videoconferencing, have been developed and applied popularly over the Internet. These multimedia services become key applications in home networks, but the bandwidth requirements for these multimedia services grow up rapidly. Thus how to provide a certain degree of Quality of Services (QoS) for the multimedia applications in edge routers is an important issue. The framework of differentiated services (DiffServ) is able to provide QoS by means of packet classifications, flow aggregation and scheduling mechanisms. In the paper a DiffServ edge router is implemented on the Intel IXP425 network processor platform. Network processors are emerging as a programmable alternative to the traditional ASIC-based solutions in scaling up the user-plane processing of network services. The performance of the implemented DiffServ edge router is evaluated by experiments. Exprimental results demonstrate the validation of the implemented system.